Based on Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, it is incontrovertible
that Democrats will not be deterred by the evidence from promoting the
incendiary propaganda that Republicans engage in systematic intimidation and
suppression of black voters.

Will we ever be able to have a presidential election again without Democrats
claiming they've been robbed? All it takes is for some Democrat bigwig or race
activist like the Rev. Jesse Jackson to make an unsubstantiated allegation of
black voter suppression. Henceforth, the truth of such allegations will be accepted
and believed by large numbers of people, including many blacks, who trust
Democrat bigwigs and the Jesse Jacksons not to lie to them.

It doesn't seem to matter to race baiters that the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights could find no evidence of actual black voter intimidation in Florida,
despite an exhaustive investigation specifically targeted to prove that very
charge.

Following the 2004 election, Democrats toyed for a while with the idea of soul
searching to determine why they had fallen out of step with the majority of
Americans. But it took no time for them to revert to form, denying the
legitimacy of the vote and scapegoating alleged GOP chicanery for their losses.

They took it upon themselves to conduct an investigation (actually, it was more
like a glorified poll) into possible voter fraud in Ohio, comforted by the
knowledge that sometimes even a blind sow finds an acre. Lo and behold the
report failed to corroborate their claims, finding there was no proof of GOP
voter fraud.

There was also no finding of black voter suppression by Republicans, though the
"investigators" did permit the vague complaints from black voters
about problems they experienced voting to hang in the air to create some element
of doubt about whether it occurred. The report stated that disproportionately
high numbers of blacks and young people had complained about long lines,
intimidation and malfunctioning machines.

The absence of evidence of GOP misconduct did not prevent Democratic National
Committee Chair Howard Dean from again publicly blasting Republicans while
exhibiting the same level of righteous indignation one might expect if an
independent, objective, legitimate, untainted investigation had actually revealed
a clear pattern of electoral abuse.

Dean said, "This is bad for America. We need to repair and restructure the
way we conduct elections in America." Let's rephrase the quote to better
capture Dean's intended meaning: "It is bad for America that Republicans
keep on winning national elections. We need to repair and restructure the way
we conduct elections in America to reverse this trend."

Dean also said, "It's been widely reported over the past several years
that Republicans do target African-Americans for voter suppression. It's very
clear here while there was no massive voter fraud, and I concur with the
conclusion -- it's also clear that there was massive voter suppression."

Dean's unwarranted inference -- that the investigation found black voter
suppression by Republicans -- prompted Cornell University professor Walter
Mebane Jr., who was involved in the study, to contradict Dean's claim.

Mebane said, "Where the partisan bias came from, where it went, we really
have no basis for making any assertion about that and I don't believe the
report makes any statements about that."

Dean, predictably, was hardly fazed by the correction. "While we certainly
couldn't draw a proven conclusion that this was willful, it certainly has the
appearance of impropriety," he said.

What I do believe is that the Democratic leadership fosters the poisonous
notion that Republicans are, by definition, racists. That this charge so routinely
and readily falls off the lips of Democrat leaders demonstrates the ugly
arrogance that afflicts their party.

To be sure, the intentional suppression or intimidation of black voters (or any
other group) would be horrendously unconscionable. But so is the intentional
perpetuation of the false charge that Republicans are racists, merely because
they have philosophical and ideological differences with Democrats.

It is hard to imagine the damage that such reckless claims by Dean and others
-- based on wishful thinking at best -- do to race relations. If these
Democratic leaders were truly sensitive to race relations, they wouldn't dare
make such baseless assertions. That they repeatedly do shows that they value
race hustling more than race relations.

I have to wonder whether more and more blacks aren't beginning to realize the
extent to which the Democratic machine takes them for granted. If the day ever
arrives when they come to trust Republicans, Democrats will doubtlessly rue the
day they were so exploitive.